Grid Connections

6th December 2018

An 80-mile subsea power link between Britain and Belgium is expected to start transmitting power early next year after the completion of £600 million of construction works. The Nemo link – named after the Jules Verne hero, not the Disney fish – runs between Richborough in Kent and Herdersbrug in Belgium and is a joint venture between National Grid and Elia, its Belgian counterpart. The cable is capable of carrying one gigawatt of electricity, or enough to power a million homes, and is the third subsea power link between Britain and mainland Europe. Originally intended to bolster Britain’s power supplies, it is now likely to be used initially to export surplus power to Belgium, which has been struggling with the shutdown of most of its nuclear plants.

Although built with the expectation of the UK mostly importing electricity, in the short-term, Nemo will provide a boost to Belgium. Six of the country’s seven nuclear plants are offline this winter because of repairs and safety checks, raising fears of blackouts. That means UK power stations will initially be largely exporting via Nemo when it becomes fully operational.

Clients have included Greenpeace, Nuclear Free Local Authorities, WWF Scotland and the UK Government’s Committee on Radioactive Waste Management.

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